Reporting Objectives

Architectural Services Department (ArchSD) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has produced 20 annual environmental reports and sustainability reports in total. The Sustainability Report 2018, Build Green‧Build Smart, is our 15th annual sustainability report, which presents our initiatives and performance on economic, environmental and social aspects in 2017.

This report provides an opportunity not only to demonstrate our achievement last year, but also to ensure you of our commitment to serving better in the future with continuous efforts and improvement in sustainability.

Reporting Scope

Reporting Principles

This Report has been prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards: Core option as well as the Environmental Protection Department's A Guide to Environmental Reporting for Controlling Officers and the Director of Information Services' memo dated 20 October 2016 – "Guidelines on preparation of annual departmental reports".

The GRI Content Index correlates GRI disclosures with associated sections in the Report. An independent third-party assurance was conducted to verify the materiality, credibility and reliability of the Report and ensure its attainments to the Core option of GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards. We also went through the GRI "Materiality Disclosures Service" to ensure General Disclosures 102-40 to 102-49 were correctly located and can be easily found by readers.

Note to Reader

The Report is published online in web-based interactive html version and PDF version. The Report is available in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. The interface has been prepared in accordance with the Level AA of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. In addition, the Report can also be viewed by tablet computers. Key features of the Report are highlighted as follows:

• On-screen font size setting provides more comfortable reading options for various users;
• Picture enlargement function presents larger and clear photo images, graphics and charts to readers;
• Search function facilitates readers to locate any specific interested sections or information efficiently;
• "My Report" function enables readers to temporarily store any selected section(s) for consolidation and printing;
• "Data Summary" section furnishes readers with a quick review of our performance on various key indicators; and
• "Glossary" section provides definitions of the technical terms using in or relevant to the Report.